“In terms of legal immigration, how we need to approach that going forward is saying — the next president and the next congress need to make decisions about a legal immigration system that's based on, first and foremost, protecting American workers and American wages, because the more I've talked to folks, I've talked to Senator Sessions and others out there — but it is a fundamentally lost issue by many in elected positions today — is what is this doing for American workers looking for jobs, what is this doing to wages, and we need to have that be at the forefront of our discussion going forward.” – Scott Walker
It doesn’t matter if your ancestors came over on the Mayflower or if you became a citizen yesterday. An American citizen is an American citizen is an American citizen. However, there’s a world of difference between an American citizen and a foreigner. We owe American citizens a lot. We owe foreigners very little.
With that in mind, the first question that should asked when it comes to our legal immigration policy is, “Is this policy good for the Americans that are already here?”
According to Gallup, 39% of Americans want less immigration and only 7% want more, so to the larger plurality of Americans, what Scott Walker said is just common sense. However, among the political class, Walker’s comments set off a firestorm because so many of them have stopped taking what’s good for the American people into account when they consider immigration.
We already have limits on immigration, but the only thing that we ever seem to discuss is whether to raise them. That’s certainly not because the current massive level of immigration is helping the middle class.
Wages of America's middle class have dropped below 1970s levels as immigration has surged 325 percent, according to a new congressional report that questions claims that native Americans are economically helped by greater immigration.
The nonpartisan Congressional Research Service report studied immigration and middle class income from 1945-2013 and found that as immigration slowed between 1945 and 1970, American incomes increased.
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...In the report to the Senate Judiciary Committee, the CRS reported that the foreign-born population of the United States surged 324.5 percent, from 9,740,000 to 41,348,066, from 1970 to 2013.
And as that happened, incomes of the bottom 90 percent dropped 7.9 percent in 2013 dollars, from an average of $33,621 to $30,980.
As a matter of fact, an awful lot of Americans are being put out of work by LEGAL immigration.
While jobs are always being created and lost, and the number of workers rises and falls with the economy, a new analysis of government data shows that all of the net gain in employment over the last 13 years has gone to immigrants (legal and illegal). From the first quarter of 2000 to the first quarter of 2013, the number of natives working actually fell by 1.3 million while the overall size of the working-age (16 to 65) native population increased by 16.4 million. Over the same time period, the number of immigrants working (legal and illegal) increased by 5.3 million. In addition to the decline in the number of natives working, there has been a broad decline in the percentage holding a job that began before the 2007 recession. This decline has impacted natives of almost every age, race, gender, and education level.
Theoretically, massive amounts of immigration may be good for America, but it sure hasn’t worked out that way in practice – and no wonder. One of the most basic principles of economics is supply and demand. If you increase the supply of workers, at a minimum, salaries and benefits drop because of the competition. If you increase the supply until there are more workers than jobs, then some people don’t work at all. That’s exactly what has happened in America over the past few decades.
That doesn’t mean immigration it bad, it’s just a little like water. It’s a necessity a glass at a time, but when it comes at you in a tidal wave the size of the Empire State Building, it can do a lot of damage. What’s wrong with acknowledging that obvious fact?
Yes, immigration has helped America overall. Yes, we should continue to allow immigration. In fact, there might even be certain professions where we want to INCREASE legal immigration. For example, unless we get a Republican in the White House who agrees to repeal and replace Obamacare (Helpful hint: Don’t vote for a candidate who won’t pledge to do this), then we’re going to need a lot more foreign born doctors to replace all the American docs leaving the profession. Moreover, I’d like to see us make the process quicker, easier & cheaper for LEGAL immigrants who we allow into our country. They want to obey our laws and try to do the right thing, so why are we making it so hard on them when we’re bending over backwards to reward lawbreaking illegals? However, when so many Americans are out of work, what’s wrong with cutting back on legal immigration for a while to allow more of our current American citizens to get back in the work force? Just as it would make sense to INCREASE the number of legal immigrants coming into the country if we had a shortage of workers, it makes sense to DECREASE the number of legal immigrants coming into our country when almost 93 million Americans are out of the labor force. That’s not “anti-immigrant” in any way, shape or form, it’s putting Americans first; something that far too many politicians & plutocrats who’ve put greed above the good our country have ceased to do.
As Mark Levin said, “We are not a nation of immigrants. We are a nation of citizens.” It’s time that our immigration policy took that into account and put Americans first.
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